Spelunking for Fried Doughnuts
by Jeze Dantaliona
Summary: The title has absolutely no correlation with the story, it's just the in-production title that I came up with while writing and it kind of stuck. No summary, rated T, not a Wincest. Enjoy.
1. Chapter 1

The fading sun is beating down on the '67 Chevy Impala, warming the interior uncomfortable for its occupants. _Highway to Hell_ is blaring in the speakers for the umpteenth time today on this love of a Sunday in mid-July. Of course, the irony of the soundtrack pissed off all of the Christians driving by on the way home from 6 o'clock mass. The first few honks were amusing to Sam and Dean, because each time it happen, they just made eye contact and grinned about being a proper disruption to the peace. Now, however, the irritated and offended responses were just plain…idiotic, maybe. Yeah, that was it. It was nothing but a barren wasteland all dressed up in casinos and sunburned tourists trying to "get lucky" in more ways than one, yet they worry about two godless guys in a car on Easter? And what is more, what are they even doing in Vegas anyway?

Oh Vegas. It was always a mystery as to why his brother and father always picked the places with the ridiculously extreme temperatures and either smog-ridden mountain ranges or vast and empty plains. Was it too hard just to go to some place with a nice forest, 65 degree temperature, and pretty azure sky with a mere one or two wispy clouds running around? _Of course it's too hard_, Sam bitterly thinks to himself. _My family doesn't like normal weather, or normal hunts involving nymphs or something_. _No, my family likes chasing after a bunch of evil vapor trails into the teeth of inclement weather. I mean really, Dean's such a masochist. Always rambling on and on about needing a break and how this job is bullshit, and yet here he is, following our absent father's orders like he always does-_

A clear and irritated "Sam Winchester likes picturing guys naked" cuts into Sam's thoughts, causing him to look over with his trademarked bitch face.

"What are you, Dean, twelve?" Sam retorts hotly, just mildly annoyed that his brother once again ruined his train of contemplation. Honestly, his brother did act like a grade-schooler with all of his pranks and little elementary remarks.

"If I'm twelve that makes you eight, bitch," responds Dean with his "I am still four years older than you so nyeh" authoritative voice. "Now do you want to shut the hell up so I can continue what I was trying to say, or do you want me to make you sound like even more of an idiot?" Sam exhales in defeat and motions with an annoyed hand to continue.

"Okay. Well, I was flipping through Dad's journal while you were living it up on that cozy little sofa last night, and..." Sam shudders as he remembers the lumpy couch he was forced to deal with while Dean got the comfy bed and the lamp and the mini-fridge. Dean, oblivious to Sam's vacant stare out of the windshield, continues with his little important rant.

"...And I found an entry that is of some particular help and interest to us."

"I'm all ears," Sam mumbles, absentmindedly massaging his sore neck and cursing crappy motels in the middle of nowhere. _Or, really, just motels in general._

"Well, as I'm flipping along and minding my own business, I came about a particularly...interesting section."

"Interesting as in...?"

"Interesting as in," Dean inhales, shoulders raising as he thinks of a proper way to put this. "Interesting as in he has a detailed section on kids."

"…Of the many vibes I had from that man, pedophilic was never one of them," Sam responds incredulously with his mouth slackened.

"That's because he isn't, you dick. It's a special children's section!"

"Oh my God," Sam yelps, cringing playfully into a ball by his door. "No wonder I have nightmares!" Dean pulls to a stop at the red light before turning his head and staring at a hysterically laughing Sam with agitation. It took about two more stoplights and three high-intensity death glares before Sam finally reigned in his amusement, giving Dean the signal to continue.

"These kids have psychic abilities that Dad has marked have mega psychic ability. A lot of them go as far as to be exceptional in the area of seeing ghosts, like the ones that not everyone, including us, can see."

"Like reapers?"

"…Doesn't say. But he has all of these kids tagged, and only one is highlighted, starred, and all the way at the top of the list." Dean slowly increases the push on the gas pedal, glancing at the clock and the rearview mirror. "Her name is Magnolia Fride; she's fourteen, and our reason for being in this wasted hellhole of a city."

"And we have to find all of these psychic kids because they can see a few extra spooks that we can't?"

"Yep. Dad doesn't say why, but there it is, in Dad's handwriting." Dean pulls a hand off of the steering wheel and motions to the journal on the dash. "You're welcome to look through it, Mr. Psycho Pervert." A small silence passes over the car as the tape switches to the next track and the role of giving death glares is reversed. The purr of the Impala's roaring engine lulls along with the beat of the song, causing Dean to drum his index fingers on the steering wheel. After a moment of sitting in stagnation, Sam reaches for the dash to grab the journal.

"You're a psycho pervert," he mimics in a childish voice to himself.

* * *

Southridge Legacy was quiet, like it usually was at this time. There was no wind, no rustle from any nonexistent passing insects. A far off streetlight buzzes dimly, flickering on and off in response to the fact that the bulb hasn't been changed in over two years. If anything, this eerie quiet was taken from most people as a standoffish rejection meant to say "You're not like us so get the hell out." Honestly, I'll be the first person to admit that this place is not the one that will send you a welcoming committee with chocolate fudge brownies decorated with colored sprinkles when you first move in. However, it's not the snobby place it's made out to be, either; Southridge is a highly misunderstood place that just doesn't have the time or emotional capacity to deal with anything other than their own screwed up little problems.

For instance, right down the street is Mrs. Richards. She was a nice, Bible-abiding woman when she moved here, handing out cookies to the distraught kids and casting reassuring glances to their shifty parents. Karen Richards only lasted a month before she claimed that her daughter died of demonic possession, a belief that then turned Karen Richards into a heroin addict to cope with her intense spiritual pain. As if this wasn't enough, her husband, Benjamin, was going to leave her and then put in for divorce later. Well, that was the plan, anyway. The day of his expected departure, he was found hanged on the stairwell. No speculation was put on the junkie wife of Benjamin Richards, but that could have been because she managed to overdose just as he was leaving. There wasn't a funeral for either parties, or any mourners really. I actually doubt anyone but myself and my mother knew that they died.

Then, we have Bill and Loretta Smithson, a lovely Irish couple that didn't have a drink/abuse problem until Bill made wild accusations that Loretta was threatening to bash his brains in with their nonexistent son's baseball bat. Poor girl was hospitalized after a beating she received from her drunken husband, who told the authorities in a slurred statement that it was merely "self-defense." Then _she_ started taking to the bottle of Jack, and now my mother and I frequently hear bottles of Budweiser smashing against the cabinets accompanied with a chorus of bloodied screams. When it first started, my mother and I froze while eating our soggy macaroni and cheese, our water-stained forks hovering in mid-air. I refused to look up and acknowledge what I was hearing, and from what I could tell thanks to my peripheral vision was that she was doing the same. Maybe if we didn't look up, it would just go away in a minute, and our ears would resume picking up Estelle Getty insulting Betty White on a Golden Girls rerun. It didn't go away though, and that's when my mother moved toward the phone to make a call she was saving for an occasion like this. She probably would have gone through with it too, if only she didn't get the biggest electric shock of her life just as she touched the phone. While she sucked her fingers and retrieved the ice, we heard the Smithsons pick up loudness in their actions. I guess it was at that point we decided just to not interfere any more.

As for my family…my mom stays pretty normal. Or, as normal as a grieving may-be widow is. We moved in as a loving family, of course. We didn't come to Las Vegas for a "fresh start," as those people floundering for some sort of salvation would call it. Dad had to work here, and Southridge just seemed like the perfect place in terms of school and placement for my dad's work. You know how it is, it has to be accommodating to both the kid and to the father who was the main provider. Not that we didn't enjoy my father's company, or we disliked or resented him in any way. Stephen Fride was one of the nicest, most gentlemanly people I ever knew, and I'm proud to say that he was once my father. Well, for all my mother and I know, he still is my father. But we don't know, and that's the whole point of staying in one place, and my mother getting a job and making sure that she stays in the house less often than Stephen did.

As long as she leaves for work every day and works several double shifts at the diner, it's usually not too hard for the household to keep functioning properly, even without that second set of hands. The only time we encountered a small bump in the road was that one time that she stayed home sick, and ever since then I've never let her near any of our knives. I, on the other hand, seem to have developed some sort of immunity to it. Of course, I still leave for at least nine hours. Most of the time, I go to the library to get ahead on school, and when I want to kill a tree I go to the park for a little while. It usually works until I run out of schoolwork, then I try to scrounge up money for a movie or ice cream or something. Mom always feels bad about leaving me alone for a long time and for not birthing me a sibling, but I always just smile and say it's alright, because it is. If there is one decent thing this place has taught me, it's to never rely on anyone, and never to get used, long for, or to even enjoy another person's companionship.

In one moment, I am waiting at the stop sign of Kelso Blvd and Jones at eight o'clock PM, where a classy black car pulls in front of me, and the passenger door opens to invite me in.

In another moment, I am back on the main street of Southridge Legacy. It's 6:45 PM, and I stare expectantly at the abandoned road just beyond. No one ever goes on that road, not even just wandering tourists. It's not just because we have a more glamorous neighborhood with no known celebrities, or that we're not near the Strip. No one ever comes to Southridge Legacy, unless they want to buy, and not many people want to do even that.

Regardless, Mom always begs me to never leave this main road of Clayrock, and I tell her I won't. I think she know that I disobey too, but if something does happen…I guess she'd rather think that I'm safe and sound in our crazy, heroin-addicted subdivision, and what she doesn't know won't cause her any distress as she buses tables. So at eight o'clock PM, I will go to the street section of Kelso Blvd and Jones, waiting for a sleek black car. She won't be home until four AM anyway.

~BREAK.~

I take a leisurely pace back to the house, waving on queue to all of the neighbors that peek at me with astounded expression through their black curtains. A few wave back, others snap their blinds closed with weakly angry expression. People here either loved me for being strong or hated me for not being weak. Normally it bothered me, and even saddened me a bit, but I decided at 6:45 PM that this was no longer "normally." It was 7:20 PM, and I still needed to formulate a plan as I stepped through the blue door of my faded peach-colored house.

See, these little visions that I have...well, I have confidence that you've guessed that they come true 100% of the time. I suppose that you could also infer that these visions pertain strictly to my neighbors and their ineluctable demises, not to my one-in-a-lifetime chance to get out of Southridge in a car of unknown origin. Perhaps, if I had the sweet time, I would have taken a moment to analyze just what I was doing, and the meaning of it all. However, when little yet crucial facts start jumping up at you like an ill-timed pop-up video, you do what you must with the time you're given.

I walk in and stomp my feet on the little mat by the front door, calmly inspect my surrounds, and then hurriedly bound up the creaky wooden stairs. The dull thunking sounds of rubber soles on wood mingle with the tick-tick-tick-tock-tock-tocks of the orange sunflower kitchen clock. Flicks of light switches and their humming bulbs keep pace with how fast the plans are forming in correspondence with the facts in my head, hurrying me along my merry way. In a split minute decision, I change into black skinny jeans, a black tank, a black jacket, and silver aviators as I attempt the feat of pulling on my combat boots without losing my cool. My heart starts to race as I slip my cell phone and iPod into my back pocket while simultaneously packing my black gym bag with various essentials. A violent urge to get the hell out of Dodge overcame me, and as I flung seemingly random items into the bag, my body was suddenly thrown into this race against time- as if to tell me that if I didn't escape soon, I'd be trapped.

One vision I was thrown into some sort of pulse-racing action-adventure.

As the last of my incidentals were hurled in, I glanced at the alarm clock on my bureau- 7:39. Just as the chargers make it into my side pocket, I grab my Sharpie and scribble down a note on a scrap piece of paper, then storm out of the door with the bag on my shoulder. The doors began to bang in fury, as the lights flickered in more pronounced patterns. Footsteps appeared warningly behind me as I bounded out of the threshold and into an even bigger nightmare.

Do you know that eerie calm before the storm you always read about in 1800s swashbuckling adventures, or in movies about the perfect hurricane hitting the tiny boat in the middle of the sea? How the inclement weather seems to start in slow motion, before gaining real time, before hitting the speed of fast-forward?

Everything was still. None of the lamps were buzzing, the street was quiet. Husbands weren't beating their wives with scared and confused tears running down their faces, and their kids weren't shrieking to the top of the lungs in terror from under their little beds. Silence wasn't that bad ninety-four minutes ago, and that terrified me, while the sudden presence of a breeze nearly gave me a heart attack. This place was under an omnipresent shade of darkness, insusceptible to any form of earthly weather, but now there was a breeze picking up intensity. Meager rain drops that surfed along the current became a self-reliant torrential rain that was clawing down front the obsidian sky in vicious sheets. Overwhelming senses of fright and nerves bore down on me in a wave as I tore down the street in a panic. Every house I passed seemed to glare at me and lean in closer, trying to trap me, to catch me with the prickly fingers of their gardens. Lactic acid in my legs kept building and my breath became shorter and shorter, and somewhere in my chest I became aware that I would collapse before this was all over.

The downpour sloshed my bangs in front of my eyes, hindering my vision as I tried to check my watch: 7:55. Five more minutes to go, and I had at least three more blocks until the main road. I tried to push myself harder, but I still managed to slow with each passing step in spite of myself. As I slowed, movement became harder, and I was suffocating and lightheaded. Weights increasing latched on to my limbs, increasing in pounds by each passing second. With my joints aching beyond the ability to keep fighting, I fell to my knees in exhaustion, and suddenly the scenery changed- and I was not smack in the middle of the dry-as-a-bone cross street of Kelso Blvd and Jones.


	2. Chapter 2

**WARNING**:

This story has some pretty coarse language, as well as slight disrespect towards religion (but then I think that's to be expected...) So yeah. Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoy it.

* * *

A blink later, I realized that the neighborhood was twenty feet away, and I was smack in the middle of a road that was expecting a black vehicle any second. But that wasn't the point. The pretty sizable point was that I suddenly regained full breaths and proper bodily function, and I was in the middle of Kelso and Jones sopping wet. Impulse caused me to peer up at a calm, new moon sky. Things were not computing, but it didn't matter. It was 8:00 PM, and there was the car turning the corner- right on time.

Grabbing my bag, I dash into the bushes while studying the vehicle from my peripheral vision. If my father had taught me anything, that was a sixties muscle car. If my ESP served, it was a '67 Chevy Impala. It was a nice, wait no, scratch that, a totally freaking sweet car with a purring engine and everything. However, I knew that already from my vision.

As it leaves sight, I sigh and straighten up, fixing my drenched hair as best as I can before walking to the entrance of the neighborhood. They were speeding down Claymore Avenue in the direction towards my house when suddenly a thick plume of smoke erupted from the exhaust pipe, stopping the vehicle in its tire tracks. Slews of cuss words, full of "Damn you Sammy!" and "Fuck off Dean!" flew through the air as several nosy people rushed to the windows and pulled open their curtains, gawking at the skirmish without shame. Tiny giggles of amusement tickled my throat as who I assumed to be Sam forcefully pushed open his door and stormed out, pissed as hell. It was a truly surprising turn of events, really. Only approximately one minute and twenty-seven seconds and one of them was already flipping a golden Twinkie. Dean cursed again loudly as he banged out of the Impala, causing me to flinch. _Do what you want to each other, but leave the car out of it, you cads._

Dean soon caught up to Sam and whacked him lightly in the back of the head as a sort of playful you-will-obey-me-because-you're-being-a-fucktard reprimand. I don't think his intention was to start a fist-fight of Rocky proportions, but he did. So as soon as Dean's flattened hand connected with Sam's head, Sam's fist connected ever so fluidly with Dean's gut, and a sharp exhale left my mouth in sympathy with the pain of it all. I let the minor brawl go for a few more seconds, seeing if maybe he'd snap out of it or something. When he didn't, there was nothing I could do except for take a steadying breath and walk back into Southridge, my Hell on earth.

"Dean!" Sam cried, stooping down to pick up his bruised brother.

"Bitch," he gasped, his eyes rolling slightly in wooziness. "You're not supposed to have that kind of arm, you asshat…"

"I don't know what happened, man! It was like I hated you or something, Dean!"

"Yeah, that happens," I decided to call, trying to ignore the brewing clouds overhead. This peculiar weather seemed to not want to let up, and it was scaring the not easily scared. That bothered me, but I still put up an air of sarcastic nonchalance. "Shoulda done your homework before you decided to come to Southridge." Upon hearing my voice, Sam dropped his hands and Dean gracefully returned to his feet before both turned to face me. The smaller one's face was trying to be taut and tough-looking with his lips pursed in a pout, but it just looked funny thrown in with the pained contortion of his feature. Sam didn't try to look tough or anything- he was terrified and proud of it.

"Special Agent Landis, and this is my partner Agent Shaw," Dean said, flashing me a fake badge. Oh how clichéd.

"Oh, you're looking for someone?" I asked, feigning complete ignorance of the situation. Both nodded cautiously, as if wondering if they should be saying anymore or just saying "Butt out, police business." An uncomfortable silence passed over us, and either this was choreographed condescending silent treatment or there was some major foot-in-mouth action going on. Either way, I didn't want to breath the silence with something stupid.

"Do you live here?" asked 'Agent Shaw' as he looked around, pretending to appreciate the beauty of the place. He's a really crappy liar.

"Mmhmm. My entire life."

"So you know everyone here?"

"Yeah, pretty much…who're you looking for? Not a lot of people here like newcomers…they barely like each other, I mean."

"Well, this girl lives on... this one, I think," Agent Shaw responded, referring to a yellowed piece of crumpled paper. "Her name is Magnolia Fride. Know her?" I could just imagine the different nosy people in their curtains, pressed against their windows heaving hot breaths of anticipation as if they were watching porn. This kind of exciting stuff doesn't happen in Southridge, and the fact I was right in the middle of it...

"What'd she do?"

"Sorry kid, that can't be disclosed," "Special Agent Landis" finally broke in.

"Well, I can still show you. I have to…check on something, anyway."

"As I-"

"That'd be really kind of you!" Shaw broke in hastily, jabbing Landis in the ribs as a warning. I flashed them an absentminded smile and started the haul ass up Claymore Avenue, wrapped in my thoughts. Obviously my will to leave the safe cross street was overrun by the desire to for dry clothes and to make sure these idiots remained safe, especially since it was me that they were looking for in the first place. Their clear stride behind me assured me that they were fine, and no crazy neighbor like Mr. Mustard shot them with a tranquilizer like he had done to my mother in the past while narrowly missing me. Unfortunately, it began to rain again at 8:13, drowning out the comforting footfalls. The street lamps began to flicker and die again as thunderclaps protruded from the sky in angry yells. Sam and Dean captured confused glances with me before I quickly turned away- they caught the obvious absence of clouds on Kelso too, apparently.

"We're almost there, so we might as well run," I called breathlessly over my shoulder, that feeling of sharp weight bearing down on my joints yet again. They sped up pace with me evenly, but I think all of us were struggling with not keeling over. Respiring sharply and perspiring profusely, we finally reached my house. It was calmer over there, and I reckon that was thanks to the fact that the storm hadn't caught up yet, "yet" being the key word.

"Magnolia lives here?" Shaw questioned, dumbfounded by the lack of squalid conditions in my front yard. I shot a crooked smile back at the tall teddy bear, happy with the fuel to make things weird.

"Yeah, I do. Mom keeps pretty finicky when it comes to the gardening. Guess she doesn't want this place to look as ghastly as the rest of them," I muttered, forcing open the front door. They both flanked me as my eyes slid shut, distraught. Whatever passed through here did a pretty good job a making a mess my mother would have to clean. Good God, I better leave an apology note with assurances that I didn't do any of this.

"Uhm…so…you're…uh…" Sam stuttered, unsure of how to proceed between the startling new information and the horrific scene in front of him.

"Maggie Fride." I gave a pained smile, looking at the sunny clock at my feet in tatters. "Pleasure to meet you."

The small steps of old-fashioned heels clunk briskly along the scorching sidewalk, almost burning some of the rubber into the cement. A cheerful tune cuts through the condensed humidity, perhaps Buffalo Gals. Little swishes here and there indicate a schoolgirl dress: knee-length and charcoal black in the sweltering heat. An armload of composition books add on to the sweat, causing Katarina Strauss to take a large breath of dusty air before whistling again, this time a darker tune. As her whistling continues, her stride gradually slowing with each passing step.

"More coffee?" asks the Blueberry Hill waitress, Kim. Sam shakes his head while Magnolia and Dean eagerly offer up their cups, which Kim fills with a not-so-gracious bend over, giving a view straight down her blouse. She leaves the table with a sensuous stroll as the only other female present gags and takes a quick sip of the coffee to down the bile before setting it down and staring out of the dirty, rain-streaked window. The weather was clear yesterday; the sun was shining and there was perfect seventy-two degree temperature and everything, but today was very much drear. Clouds formed a halo over the valley as the rain pounded the dirty pavement, taking about twenty degrees alone off the temperature; never mind the fact that it was only five in the morning.  
"Magnolia, we could use your mind to be in this conversation, seeing as how it pertains to you." She sighs, taking one last glance at the monotonous landscape outside the dirty piece of glass before turning to the two brothers seated across from her in the booth. Sam was looking at Maggie contentedly with his brow furrowed while also awaiting the arrival of the morning paper; whereas, Dean was chowing down on a stack of pancakes drowning in maple syrup with strawberries and cream.  
"Yeah, shoot," she mutters, taking another sip of coffee.  
"So, I assume that you know of your…" Sam trails off, folding his hands on the table. "Abilities?"  
"They're kind of hard to miss, if you can understand," she replies stoically, more preoccupied with putting copious amounts of sugar substitute in the liquid. "I mean, predicting the disappearance of your father and the demise of your only dog is, as I said, a kind of hard coincidence to miss." Both attractive brothers meet glances before breaking away to study Magnolia again.  
"Okay, so we can say something weird and you won't be freaked out?" Sam questions, staring at her as she fiddles with about the sixth sugar packet she has opened. Finally managing to tear off the top of the Splenda package, she grunts triumphantly while nodding her head.  
"Sammy and I hunt demons," Dean states proudly to her, hoping to get a reaction out of her, like terror or skepticism. For the entire time that she had been with them, she had showed virtually no expression except for that smartass smirk, and that was Dean's job, and much to his dismay, no significant change was made. Instead, the psychic glances up with a deadpan look on her face, with only the smallest carving of a smirk on the left corner of her mouth. Taking another sip of caffeine, she thinks meaningfully of the two expressions presented in front of her: trepidation on her left, and disappointment her right. A smirk becoming more pronounced, Dean is almost taken aback.  
"That's all you have that might freak me out? Dude, did you not catch the neighborhood I live in or my family history?" Silence ensued, and the regular breakfast routine continued on. Dean stuffed his mouth with even more strawberries, not taking his gaze off of Maggie, while Sam scurried off to grab the first copy of the newspaper. Kim watches from behind the pie counter, obviously staring at Sam's perfectly defined ass, or so Maggie observes with a grimace and puckered mouth. She was going to be the first to admit that she had a bit of an insecurity problem…or more than a bit. Chunky and overly tall wearing ratty T-shirts with skinny jeans, Magnolia Fride was the exact opposite of the confidence she frequently tried to exude. As a result, she wasn't too much of a crowd favorite; except for the weak kids she always saved (meat beats bones any day of the bitchy menstrual cycle). Either way, any friends or kind acquaintances she made were the recipient of her learned territorial nature, and this Kim chick was getting on her last fleshy nerve. Honestly, it wasn't as if this girl's immense attitude problem wasn't enough to get under any body's skin, this was taking the cake- or at least in her head.  
"Alright Dean, we have a case," Sam says unexpectedly, slapping the clean paper onto the table. As Dean studies the cover page while swallowing a bit of orange juice, Magnolia watches Sam's hands brace him onto the table, knuckles turning white as he slides into the cushy booth seat, and then his hands move to shift the paper more towards him. He has nice hands, she thinks to herself.  
"Young girl, named Katarina Strauss. Just found dead in her school, located in Fluorentine Hills. Found by childhood friend slash fellow churchgoer Mira Lanning chopped in her locker with an inverted pentagram slung around her neck."  
"Hey, Katarina…Saunders, you said?" Maggie cut in clearly and evenly with a vague gleam of disbelief in her eyes.  
"No, Strauss…why?"  
"Poor girl. Her mother must've married that jackass guy she was dating. Man, Kat didn't deserve that…" she trailed off, ignoring the furrowed, questioning brow that both brothers were so kindly giving her. They allowed her a moment of reflection, which was apparently all that she needed.  
"Katarina Saunders was my friend in Fluorentine."  
"You lived there?"  
"Kind of. Probably why you boys found me at this time. The Fates have a way of doing those things..."  
"When?"  
"Pardon?" Maggie asked, obviously confused by being broken from her train of thought.  
"When did you live there?" questioned Dean, tearing off a piece of what clean napkin he had left and using a Keno crayon that was on the table for written information.  
"I didn't. I just went there during the summer to visit. Mom came too, sometimes. But then she got a boyfriend, and so I usually went just by myself. I met Kat at a little housewarming dinner that my dad always threw for me when I finally arrived in Ohio. I liked her; she was a nice enough friend. Just a little too godly for me, if you know what I mean. Well, I mean, just way too many cross-talks during play dates when we could've been making mud pies." She shrugs, and plays when the straw paper, trying to prepare herself for the inevitable questions that may follow.  
"You're saying she was a…"  
"Bible thumper to the core. You have no idea, dudes. It was almost scary in her room, with all of these descriptive posters of Jesus bleeding on the cross. Dad never let me stay there again after the trauma that I suffered from." A small hysterical giggle was released from Dean's mouth, before he doubled over his plate in laughter, and is soon joined by a small scoff on Magnolia's end. After a moment of thinking about what was so funny, Sam figured it out and let out a humorless smirk.  
"So you're afraid of Jesus, Magnolia? Now that is frightening."  
"Oh definitely, Dean. Compared to this crap I see, Jesus really takes the cake."  
"You folks done here?" Kim asks, wearing a bright smile with newly-done overly-eyeliner-ed eyes.  
"Yeah, sure," Dean responds, ogling the girl's chest. A small knot in her stomach twists, and she grips the edge of the table in desperation. Sinking sensations are at tug of war with her nerves, and are winning the battle. The room spins, and nausea slowly creeps into the skull, gnawing at it until there is nothing left but a jiggly brain. Trachea tightens uncomfortably, almost strangling her, and dying, death, dead.

"Hey, Mag, you up yet?" Dean calls back from the driver's seat, looking back in the rearview mirror. Sam is also looking back with concern in his eyes, obviously in the internal struggle if he should rub her shoulder or something, but the struggle is over when he decides that he doesn't want to be branded a pedophile today.  
"…Did you guys get the pie I wanted?"

Kelley Chronicle, Entry #1, Colorado

The fact of the matter was that I couldn't make heads or tails of anything that happened for about a day since Blueberry's. Sam said I kept mumbling to myself, saying Dean's name a lot. Both of them keep looking at me funny, and I really don't blame them. Of course, I think it's kind of worse that I don't even know what it is, what I've seen. All I know is that it wasn't good, and it smelled like death, and that waitress triggered it. But thanks to Abbott and Costello, I couldn't very well just go back and threaten to strangle her with her cheap little belt if she didn't give me the answers I wanted, because we were no longer in the sandy state of Nevada, oh no. Now we were breezing through the wonderful Rocky Mountains of Colorado, and I had absolutely no say in the matter.  
They can get why it is that I'm handing them the silent treatment, but Dean isn't really appreciating it as much as Sam. However, we all know that Sam's the one with the conscience. He's also the one that when I was done with my heated little rant that gave me this gem of a book. Told me that there was a lot of crap I was going to see, and that it may just be best to journal it somehow- he said that I have their dad's talent. I can guess that that's a good thing, but really, an odiferous leather journal isn't my idea of an initiation present, especially when I know that I won't be coming back after all of this is over. They know it too; actually, I think they're banking on the fact that I won't be coming back. Well, so am I. I think.  
Anyway, we just stopped at some fast food joint outside of Denver. Dean says that we're going to be in Fluorentine in a little over a day, which is okay. After sitting for so long, it's a miracle I can still even tell that my legs are attached to my body…right? Sam laughed a little when I commented on that, but then both he and Dean just went right back to being quiet and concentrating. So here I am, journaling in my journal, thinking of any other worthy thoughts to put in here.  
I'm kind of peculiar like that, you know? I don't like revealing too much information at one time, to people and in my writing. When I think about it, I am going to have to think about that little vice more often. The way Sam was trying to explain hunting, when lives hang in the balance, all essential information must be out on the table at all times. And when I think about it even more, I don't have a lot of essential information that they need to know about at present, even less my journal. So I suppose I might as well just bring out some memories of Kat.  
Have you ever had a friend that was just too good, dear person who is not reading my diary? I have, quite obviously. When I told Dean that I was afraid of Jesus because of Kat, I wasn't trying out a joke for size. Really, that girl was so extremely worried about pleasing "Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ" that by the end of an hour long get-together, I was ready to nail myself to the cross and tell them that I believed to just make her stop drilling the damned Bible into me. She was nice though. Even if at the end of my rants of believing that something was off and she would respond that God make everything okay again, she would always listen dutifully and without interruption. She was a nice girl, watched out for my rainy days and baked me angel sugar cookies on them. What always fascinated me with her was her complete inability to get angry or depressed in the sweltering heat and in her two little situations-


	3. Chapter 3

**WARNINGS**:

The same as the previous chapter. Again, thank you for reading. Leave your comments, criticisms, but no flames, please.

* * *

The small steps of old-fashioned heels clunk briskly along the scorching sidewalk, almost burning some of the rubber into the cement. A cheerful tune cuts through the condensed humidity, perhaps Buffalo Gals. Little swishes here and there indicate a schoolgirl dress: knee-length and charcoal black in the sweltering heat. An armload of composition books add on to the sweat, causing Katarina Strauss to take a large breath of dusty air before whistling again, this time a darker tune. As her whistling continues, her stride gradually slowing with each passing step.

"More coffee?" asks the Blueberry Hill waitress, Kim. Sam shakes his head while Magnolia and Dean eagerly offer up their cups, which Kim fills with a not-so-gracious bend over, giving a view straight down her blouse. She leaves the table with a sensuous stroll as the only other female present gags and takes a quick sip of the coffee to down the bile before setting it down and staring out of the dirty, rain-streaked window. The weather was clear yesterday; the sun was shining and there was perfect seventy-two degree temperature and everything, but today was very much drear. Clouds formed a halo over the valley as the rain pounded the dirty pavement, taking about twenty degrees alone off the temperature; never mind the fact that it was only five in the morning.

"Magnolia, we could use your mind to be in this conversation, seeing as how it pertains to you." She sighs, taking one last glance at the monotonous landscape outside the dirty piece of glass before turning to the two brothers seated across from her in the booth. Sam was looking at Maggie contentedly with his brow furrowed while also awaiting the arrival of the morning paper; whereas, Dean was chowing down on a stack of pancakes drowning in maple syrup with strawberries and cream.

"Yeah, shoot," she mutters, taking another sip of coffee.

"So, I assume that you know of your…" Sam trails off, folding his hands on the table. "Abilities?"

"They're kind of hard to miss, if you can understand," she replies stoically, more preoccupied with putting copious amounts of sugar substitute in the liquid. "I mean, predicting the disappearance of your father and the demise of your only dog is, as I said, a kind of hard coincidence to miss." Both attractive brothers meet glances before breaking away to study Magnolia again.

"Okay, so we can say something weird and you won't be freaked out?" Sam questions, staring at her as she fiddles with about the sixth sugar packet she has opened. Finally managing to tear off the top of the Splenda package, she grunts triumphantly while nodding her head.

"Sammy and I hunt demons," Dean states proudly to her, hoping to get a reaction out of her, like terror or skepticism. For the entire time that she had been with them, she had showed virtually no expression except for that smartass smirk, and that was Dean's job, and much to his dismay, no significant change was made. Instead, the psychic glances up with a deadpan look on her face, with only the smallest carving of a smirk on the left corner of her mouth. Taking another sip of caffeine, she thinks meaningfully of the two expressions presented in front of her: trepidation on her left, and disappointment her right. A smirk becoming more pronounced, Dean is almost taken aback.

"That's all you have that might freak me out? Dude, did you not catch the neighborhood I live in or my family history?" Silence ensued, and the regular breakfast routine continued on. Dean stuffed his mouth with even more strawberries, not taking his gaze off of Maggie, while Sam scurried off to grab the first copy of the newspaper. Kim watches from behind the pie counter, obviously staring at Sam's perfectly defined ass, or so Maggie observes with a grimace and puckered mouth. She was going to be the first to admit that she had a bit of an insecurity problem…or more than a bit. Chunky and overly tall wearing ratty T-shirts with skinny jeans, Magnolia Fride was the exact opposite of the confidence she frequently tried to exude. As a result, she wasn't too much of a crowd favorite; except for the weak kids she always saved (meat beats bones any day of the bitchy menstrual cycle). Either way, any friends or kind acquaintances she made were the recipient of her learned territorial nature, and this Kim chick was getting on her last fleshy nerve. Honestly, it wasn't as if this girl's immense attitude problem wasn't enough to get under any body's skin, this was taking the cake- or at least in her head.

"Alright Dean, we have a case," Sam says unexpectedly, slapping the clean paper onto the table. As Dean studies the cover page while swallowing a bit of orange juice, Magnolia watches Sam's hands brace him onto the table, knuckles turning white as he slides into the cushy booth seat, and then his hands move to shift the paper more towards him. He has nice hands, she thinks to herself.

"Young girl, named Katarina Strauss. Just found dead in her school, located in Fluorentine Hills. Found by childhood friend slash fellow churchgoer Mira Lanning chopped in her locker with an inverted pentagram slung around her neck."

"Hey, Katarina…Saunders, you said?" Maggie cut in clearly and evenly with a vague gleam of disbelief in her eyes.

"No, Strauss…why?"

"Poor girl. Her mother must've married that jackass guy she was dating. Man, Kat didn't deserve that…" she trailed off, ignoring the furrowed, questioning brow that both brothers were so kindly giving her. They allowed her a moment of reflection, which was apparently all that she needed.

"Katarina Saunders was my friend in Fluorentine."

"You lived there?"

"Kind of. Probably why you boys found me at this time. The Fates have a way of doing those things..."

"When?"

"Pardon?" Maggie asked, obviously confused by being broken from her train of thought.

"When did you live there?" questioned Dean, tearing off a piece of what clean napkin he had left and using a Keno crayon that was on the table for written information.

"I didn't. I just went there during the summer to visit. Mom came too, sometimes. But then she got a boyfriend, and so I usually went just by myself. I met Kat at a little housewarming dinner that my dad always threw for me when I finally arrived in Ohio. I liked her; she was a nice enough friend. Just a little too godly for me, if you know what I mean. Well, I mean, just way too many cross-talks during play dates when we could've been making mud pies." She shrugs, and plays when the straw paper, trying to prepare herself for the inevitable questions that may follow.

"You're saying she was a…"

"Bible thumper to the core. You have no idea, dudes. It was almost scary in her room, with all of these descriptive posters of Jesus bleeding on the cross. Dad never let me stay there again after the trauma that I suffered from." A small hysterical giggle was released from Dean's mouth, before he doubled over his plate in laughter, and is soon joined by a small scoff on Magnolia's end. After a moment of thinking about what was so funny, Sam figured it out and let out a humorless smirk.

"So you're afraid of Jesus, Magnolia? Now that is frightening."

"Oh definitely, Dean. Compared to this crap I see, Jesus really takes the cake."

"You folks done here?" Kim asks, wearing a bright smile with newly-done overly-eyeliner-ed eyes.

"Yeah, sure," Dean responds, ogling the girl's chest. A small knot in her stomach twists, and she grips the edge of the table in desperation. Sinking sensations are at tug of war with her nerves, and are winning the battle. The room spins, and nausea slowly creeps into the skull, gnawing at it until there is nothing left but a jiggly brain. Trachea tightens uncomfortably, almost strangling her, and dying, death, dead.

"Hey, Mag, you up yet?" Dean calls back from the driver's seat, looking back in the rearview mirror. Sam is also looking back with concern in his eyes, obviously in the internal struggle if he should rub her shoulder or something, but the struggle is over when he decides that he doesn't want to be branded a pedophile today.  
"…Did you guys get the pie I wanted?"

Kelley Chronicle, Entry #1, Colorado

The fact of the matter was that I couldn't make heads or tails of anything that happened for about a day since Blueberry's. Sam said I kept mumbling to myself, saying Dean's name a lot. Both of them keep looking at me funny, and I really don't blame them. Of course, I think it's kind of worse that I don't even know what it is, what I've seen. All I know is that it wasn't good, and it smelled like death, and that waitress triggered it. But thanks to Abbott and Costello, I couldn't very well just go back and threaten to strangle her with her cheap little belt if she didn't give me the answers I wanted, because we were no longer in the sandy state of Nevada, oh no. Now we were breezing through the wonderful Rocky Mountains of Colorado, and I had absolutely no say in the matter.

They can get why it is that I'm handing them the silent treatment, but Dean isn't really appreciating it as much as Sam. However, we all know that Sam's the one with the conscience. He's also the one that when I was done with my heated little rant that gave me this gem of a book. Told me that there was a lot of crap I was going to see, and that it may just be best to journal it somehow- he said that I have their dad's talent. I can guess that that's a good thing, but really, an odiferous leather journal isn't my idea of an initiation present, especially when I know that I won't be coming back after all of this is over. They know it too; actually, I think they're banking on the fact that I won't be coming back. Well, so am I. I think.

Anyway, we just stopped at some fast food joint outside of Denver. Dean says that we're going to be in Fluorentine in a little over a day, which is okay. After sitting for so long, it's a miracle I can still even tell that my legs are attached to my body…right? Sam laughed a little when I commented on that, but then both he and Dean just went right back to being quiet and concentrating. So here I am, journaling in my journal, thinking of any other worthy thoughts to put in here.

I'm kind of peculiar like that, you know? I don't like revealing too much information at one time, to people and in my writing. When I think about it, I am going to have to think about that little vice more often. The way Sam was trying to explain hunting, when lives hang in the balance, all essential information must be out on the table at all times. And when I think about it even more, I don't have a lot of essential information that they need to know about at present, even less my journal. So I suppose I might as well just bring out some memories of Kat.

Have you ever had a friend that was just too good, dear person who is not reading my diary? I have, quite obviously. When I told Dean that I was afraid of Jesus because of Kat, I wasn't trying out a joke for size. Really, that girl was so extremely worried about pleasing "Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ" that by the end of an hour long get-together, I was ready to nail myself to the cross and tell them that I believed to just make her stop drilling the damned Bible into me. She was nice though. Even if at the end of my rants of believing that something was off and she would respond that God make everything okay again, she would always listen dutifully and without interruption. She was a nice girl, watched out for my rainy days and baked me angel sugar cookies on them. What always fascinated me with her was her complete inability to get angry or depressed in the sweltering heat and in her two little situations-


End file.
